


Coming To Conclusions

by mistleto3



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, character birthday, domestic abuse mention, mikorei mention, trans male!Tatara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistleto3/pseuds/mistleto3
Summary: Misaki is in the midst of a sexuality crisis, and is further thrown for a loop when he finds out Tatara is transgender.





	Coming To Conclusions

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to my fav ginger sunshine boy!!
> 
> This fic can also be found on [Tumblr.](http://mistleto-3.tumblr.com/post/163253071979/coming-to-conclusions)

When Tatara had told Misaki he’d finally found a buyer his father’s old home and would be away from the bar for a couple of days to empty the last of the things out of the house, Misaki had been quick to volunteer to help him out. He’d reasoned that Tatara wasn’t exactly strong, and Misaki didn’t know how he’d cope moving heavy boxes and bits of furniture around by himself. Izumo was too busy running the bar to help him, and Mikoto was… well, Mikoto, so Misaki had taken it upon himself. It had taken a little while to convince Tatara to accept the offer- initially he’d been insistent that he would be fine on his own, and Misaki didn’t need to trouble himself, but eventually, he gave in.

It had been somewhat surreal for Misaki to enter Tatara’s childhood home- a tiny, run-down cottage just outside of the city. It didn’t seem like the kind of place someone like Tatara would have grown up. The house was fairly sparse; most of the furniture was gone, save for some of the things Tatara hadn’t had the space to bring with him when he’d moved into his apartment in Shizume city. The only indication Tatara had lived there were the knickknacks and paraphernalia of his old hobbies that cluttered the shelves, now dusty from disuse.

The pair spent the first morning moving out the furniture- most of it was rickety and held together with wood glue and duct tape, so Misaki pulled it apart and tossed the remnants into the dumpster Tatara had hired (he had great fun wielding the axe he’d found in the shed, though Tatara couldn’t watch in fear that Misaki would accidentally chop off his own foot, or something equally silly).

By lunchtime, the house was devoid of furniture. The pair had sat in the unkempt grass of the front lawn to eat their lunch, but as they returned into the building, Tatara was stopped in his tracks by the sight of the house he’d grown up in.

“Seeing it empty is so strange.”

Now that the cosiness of the mismatched and well-used furnishings had gone, the main room looked barren and cold. The wear was easy to see- the floorboards were scratched; the paint was flaking off the window frames, and damp had begun to peel away at the faded wallpaper.

Misaki didn’t know how best to comfort him, so he simply clapped Tatara on the shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “If someone’s buyin’ it then maybe they’ll do it up and it’ll get turned into a home again.”

Tatara smiled faintly. “I don’t know why I’m getting so nostalgic all of a sudden; it’s not like I had the happiest childhood here. But it’s still strange.” Despite the nod to what seemed to be a dark chapter of his history, Tatara’s expression was as carefree as ever.

 “What do you mean?”

“Hmm?”

“About it not being the happiest.”

“Ah. As you can probably tell, we didn’t have much money when I was a kid. My dad… had some troubles. Debt, that sort of thing, and my mother left him when I was younger. He tried his best, but he was absent a lot, so I ended up being here by myself most of the time.” As Tatara spoke, he wandered over to the windowsill, where some of his old things still stood. He was still smiling slightly as he talked, as though he was simply discussing the weather.

Misaki frowned, but followed him across the room. A few photographs in cheap wooden frames perched between the other keepsakes and souvenirs on the sill. Tatara picked one up, leaving in its shadow a clear spot amongst the thin film of dust that covered the rest of the surface, and he smiled fondly at the faded picture.

“I still loved my family, and I still remember the happy times. My dad wasn’t a bad person, he was just troubled. It’s sad to think of what could have been here instead of an empty room if things had gone differently,” Tatara said, and as he spoke, Misaki peered at the photograph he held in his hands. The image had been bleached by the sunlight over the years, but it still clearly depicted a man and a woman, standing with their arms around one another in what looked to be a neater version of the front of the house. The lawn wasn’t overgrown, and flowers grew in terracotta pots beneath the window and beside the doorstep. Between them stood a little girl, smiling at the camera.

“I didn’t know you had a sister?” Misaki said cautiously, looking at the child in the photo. She bore a great resemblance to Tatara, but she wore a lilac dress, and her hair was longer and tied into pigtails.

“Hm? Oh, no, I don’t.” A sheepish look crossed Tatara’s face.

“Is that like your cousin or something then?”

“No, it’s me.”

Misaki raised an eyebrow. “Why are you dressed like a girl?”

Tatara smiled shyly. “I always forget you guys don’t know… I was sort of born a girl.”

Misaki paused, his brow furrowing as he tried to process the information. He was vaguely aware of people changing gender as a concept, but if he was perfectly honest, he was totally flying blind when it came to this sort of thing. He’d heard people mention things about sex changes and transsexual people in the past, but he was dubious about how reliable the information was.

He clammed up, stuttering as he tried to come up with something appropriately supportive to say, but his attempts were thwarted by the dozens of competing thoughts that bubbled to the forefront of his mind at the revelation. He bit his tongue, holding back the questions that even he had the good sense to know were inappropriate. Now that Tatara had mentioned it, it was sort of difficult not to notice how… feminine he was. Tatara had always been effeminate, but Misaki had always put that down to just being the way he was- that and the fact that Tatara was openly queer, and it sort of showed in his mannerisms. But in the light of what Tatara had just said, Misaki couldn’t _not_ pick up on how delicate his hands were, how narrow his shoulders…

He shook the thoughts from his head- they felt disrespectful somehow, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

“S-sorry…” he began. “I’m, uh, not super up on all this stuff…” Misaki rubbed the back of his head nervously. “S-so that makes you, tra… transsexual, right?”

Tatara chuckled gently at his bashfulness, and to Misaki’s relief he didn’t seem offended. “That’s sort of an outdated term; most people use the word ‘transgender’ now, but yes. When I was born, they thought I was a girl, but I figured out as I got older that that wasn’t right.”

Misaki nodded slowly, and apologised again. “Who else knows…?”

“I was already out as a guy full-time by the time Homra really started to form, so the only other people in Homra who know are King and Kusanagi-san. And Anna. I try to keep it quiet- it’s not actively a secret or anything, but the guys have all always known me as a man, so it’s easier just to keep it that way.”

Misaki gave another nod. “I understand… I won’t tell.”

“You don’t have to treat me any differently or anything like that. I’m just like you and the rest of the folks in Homra, just wasn’t born with the same equipment.” He paused for a moment, then smiled, leaning against the windowsill. “I can tell this has kinda thrown you for a loop, hm?”

“L-Like I said, I don’t really… know anything about all of this.”

Tatara started setting the knickknacks from the windowsill in a cardboard box as he began to explain: “I figured out when I was about nine or ten that being a girl didn’t really feel right- I didn’t like being referred to as a girl or dressing in girly clothes. It’s like… how you feel when people say your name is a girl’s name, but turned up to eleven.”

Misaki nodded slowly.

“And then I hit puberty and my body started changing to be more like a woman’s and it made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t really put together why that was until I watched a movie with a trans character in it. I was watching English language films because my hobby at that point was learning English, and there was a woman in one of the movies that was ‘born a boy,’ so to speak. And I started to wonder: if she could be a woman even though she was assigned male at birth, maybe I could be a boy. So I did some research, and here I am.”

“But like… how do you look like a dude?”

“Testosterone injections. I’ve been on them for two years now; they help to masculinise my body- changing the way I store fat, making my voice drop, making me grow a bit of facial hair, amongst other things... Well, we’re still getting there on the facial hair front,” Tatara conceded, fingering a patch of sparse peach fuzz on his jawline.

Misaki smiled a little at the self-deprecating joke. In a way, it sort of dropped it all into perspective for him- worrying about being able to grow stubble was such a normal thing for a guy to worry about (indeed, Misaki had his own insecurities around his smooth face). “That… makes sense, I think. As long as you’re happy, I guess it doesn’t matter whether the doctor said you were a boy or a girl when you popped out, right? S-sorry if I say anything dumb.”

“It’s okay- you’re learning. If you have any questions, you can ask.”

 Misaki offered a weak smile. “Thanks.”

The rest of the afternoon passed mostly without incident- the pair continued packing away the keepsakes on the shelves, and by the end of the day, they’d finished emptying the house even though Tatara had predicted it would take a couple of days. Having two sets of hands made quicker work of it, even with Tatara pausing every now and again to recount some anecdote about an old hobby of his, or a childhood memory. The insight into Tatara’s youth was sort of strange for Misaki. Aside from the whole him not always having been a dude thing, it was weird to see him talk so casually about what was objectively quite a neglectful childhood. It amazed Misaki that he turned out to be the sunny person that he had, considering everything he’d been through. Especially considering that the only other neglected kid Misaki really knew was Saruhiko, whose attitude was the total opposite of Tatara’s.

But underneath that, Misaki could still feel himself seizing up. He tried to distract himself with the packing, but there was only so much of his brain he could occupy just putting stuff in boxes. He felt like an ass for it, but he could feel the anxiety he usually only got around women tying knots in the pit of his stomach. And he didn’t know why- he’d always seen Tatara as one of the guys; why should he feel any differently now? He tried to avoid his friend’s eye as he worked, chewing his lip as a wash of guilt settled over him.

And of course Tatara noticed- Tatara was the sort of person who could read people’s thoughts off them like they were typed across their foreheads.

“Yata-san, is something wrong?”

“H-hm? Oh, no, just tired I think,” he offered, attempting to give a reassuring smile.

“Well, we’re nearly done here at least,” Tatara replied, though Misaki wasn’t entirely sure he was convinced by the lie.

It wasn’t until he got home that Misaki could really reflect properly on what it was that had been bothering him all day. He kicked off his shoes, collapsing onto the couch in his apartment and staring up at the ceiling with a deep huff. He didn’t like to think about this sort of thing- in fact, he actively hated it. But he hated the idea of Tatara feeling uncomfortable even more; he didn’t want Tatara to think Misaki’s obvious awkwardness and discomfort had anything to do with him being trans.

In a rather uncomfortable recent period of self-discovery, Misaki had come to the realisation that the reason he wasn’t exactly confident around women was because he didn’t feel the way he thought he was supposed to about them. Ever since he was a kid, he’d seen men in real life and in the TV shows he watched lust over women, pursue them to the exclusion of all else, obsess over them, get in fights and fall out with their best friends over them. It seemed to be the norm to do stupid and detrimental things just to get in some girl’s pants.

And Misaki didn’t get it. He just didn’t. He didn’t get what was so great about the idea of dating a girl or kissing a girl or having sex with a girl or whatever.

And then he’d met Tatara and the pair had become close friends, and Misaki suddenly started recognising the feelings he’d heard people talk about in the past- the butterflies in your stomach, the dry throat, the daydreams, the distraction, the desire to spend time with them. Except he didn’t feel them about a girl; he felt them about Tatara. Tatara was kind and funny and gentle and beautiful and Misaki felt a sort of magnetism toward his clansman that he’d never felt toward any woman.

It had taken Misaki a long time to process the fact he thought he might be gay- even now, he hadn’t completely made peace with the fact, and he’d never breathed a word about it to anybody.

At first, he’d worried he was a misogynist, and that was why he didn’t like girls in that way. Which had made him hate himself. Ever since he’d seen the black eyes his biological father used to give his mother before they’d gotten divorced, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t be the kind of guy his dad was. Being the sort of man who respected and cared for women, the provider, the man of the house, the protector, was important to him. It had taken a while to reconcile this desire with his lack of attraction to women.

In a weird sort of way, it had helped when he started hearing rumours that Mikoto was involved with the Blue King. Mikoto was the kind of guy Misaki had always aspired to be- he was strong and brave and he protected those who couldn’t look out for themselves and he never let himself show weakness. The only depiction of gay men Misaki had ever seen before that were the stereotypical effeminate guys with lisps and feather boas, and as much as Misaki respected those people, that wasn’t what he wanted for himself. And then he’d caught Mikoto and Reisi kissing in the bar, and aside from his initial mortification, in an odd sort of way, Misaki was comforted. It was reassuring to know that someone like Mikoto could still be… well, Mikoto, and still kiss guys at the same time.

It had taken months, but Misaki had finally started to come around to the idea that he might be gay after all, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. He’d even started to fantasise about asking Tatara out, and had a plan half-formulated in his brain.

And then this happened. He’d discovered the guy he felt so strongly for had been born with what most people would deem a girl’s body, and now the parts of himself that had fought so vehemently to suppress the idea he might be gay had resurfaced with a vengeance. They told him he was wrong after all- if the guy he wanted to date wasn’t really a guy, then maybe he wasn’t really gay.

Misaki pulled the front of his beanie down over his eyes in frustration with himself, resisting the urge to pull on his own hair. If he’d heard anyone else suggest that Tatara “wasn’t really a guy” because of the way his junk looked when he was born, Misaki would have punched their lights out. He knew Tatara was a guy- he’d been a guy as long as Misaki had known him. But he was having difficulties getting those intrusive thoughts to shut the hell up.

Eventually, he managed to get them to tone down their misgendering, but he still couldn’t quite shake the thought that maybe if he was attracted to someone with what most would consider female body parts, then perhaps he wasn’t gay after all. He didn’t even know what parts Tatara had- even he had the good sense not to go asking about whether Tatara had boobs or what he had in his pants, but even the slightest prospect that Misaki might have a crush on someone with a vagina was enough to sow seeds of doubt in his head.

And Misaki could feel that doubt starting to make him act strange. His nervousness around Tatara continued to bug him, and he felt his cheeks heating up whenever he was in his vicinity. He’d also noticed himself getting more protective of his friend. Tatara’s effeminate appearance often meant that people weren’t quite sure right off the bat how to gender him, and it wasn’t uncommon for people in his vicinity to be heard whispering to one another wondering if he was a man or a woman.

Unfortunately for the whisperers, Misaki overheard some of them one day, and something just sort of snapped in him. A pair of boys from the nearby high school were walking not far behind Misaki, Tatara, and Dewa as they made their way back to the bar.

Chuckling, one of them whispered to the other: “Do you think that blond is a dude or a chick?”

Misaki normally wouldn’t have done more than shot them a glare, but this time, before he could stop himself, he whirled around and snapped at them:

“Are you an asshole or just an idiot?”

The boys looked flabbergasted for a moment, but then had the decency to mumble an apology as they hurried past, abashed.

Tatara tried to assure Misaki that it was alright- he didn’t have to defend him, but Misaki hadn’t been able to resist the urge. A part of him knew he was overcompensating for the intrusive thoughts he’d had after Tatara had first come out to him, and it only made him feel more guilty. 

Misaki could feel himself continuing to acting weird for a couple of weeks. The unwanted sexuality crisis was bad enough, but piled on top of that, his shame at the fact he was even having this crisis in the first place was eating away at him. Tatara was a man, regardless of whether he’d known that his entire life, and Misaki was attracted to him, but not to girls, and that made him gay. It was simple. So why couldn’t he shake the doubt taking root in his mind?

He was also mortifyingly aware of how observant Tatara was, and constantly convinced that his friend would pick up on his behaviour, and somehow figure out what it was that was on his mind. It’s not like it would be difficult- he’d mysteriously started acting strange right after Tatara had come out to him, and he hated the thought that Tatara would assume Misaki was uncomfortable with his gender identity.

Thankfully, he didn’t mention Misaki’s odd behaviour, and when Misaki’s birthday rolled around, he seemed as eager as ever to organise something to celebrate. Seeing as his birthday fell mid-week that year, Tatara had planned something big for the following weekend when more people would be free to attend, but he also insisted that they have a small gettogether on his actual birthday, even if most of the Homra guys wouldn’t be able to make it. Tatara had been so excited to plan it that Misaki couldn’t bring himself to decline (he felt awkward, allowing him to do all this when he was having all these shitty thoughts, even if he couldn’t control them), but he was secretly sort of reassured- at least he knew Tatara didn’t hold a grudge.

To Misaki’s relief, Tatara’s plans for his birthday itself were low-key: movies and pizza and a couple beers (the invitees were instructed not to tell Izumo that Tatara was enabling underage drinking) with the guys at Tatara’s apartment, and all Misaki had to do was show up. Unfortunately, only a few people could make it- most of the clansmen either had plans that night or work the following morning, so either couldn’t come, or could only do so for a few hours. Rikio seemed a little off all day at the bar, and predictably he texted to say he couldn’t make it as he had a stomach bug, which Misaki thought was fair enough, so at the start of the evening, aside from the host and the one celebrating his birthday, the guest list consisted of Yo, Dewa, Kosuke, and Akagi. However, most could only stay for one movie, with the exception of Yo, who left two-thirds of the way through the first film, citing a hot Tinder matchup as the reason for his premature departure.

When Misaki was left alone with Tatara, he offered to leave, not wanting to make things awkward, but there was a genuine smile on Tatara’s face as he asked him to stay.

“There are plenty of snacks left,” he joked, and Misaki gave a weak smile, settling back onto the sofa beside him.

And of course, Tatara immediately picked up on his odd demeanour. “Everything okay?” he asked casually.

“Y-yeah…” Misaki cursed himself internally for his stutter- Tatara didn’t seem too concerned before, but now he leaned forward in his seat, a crease between his eyebrows.

“You sure? You’ve been acting a little strange for a while…”

Misaki shut his eyes in embarrassment. “S-sorry…”

“Sorry? What for?”

“I’ve been acting weird since that day at your place…” he mumbled. “S-since you told me…”

“…Told you I’m trans?” Tatara offered, his tone neutral.

“Y-yeah… And I didn’t want you to think I was bein’ intolerant or anything. I’ve never seen you as anything other than a dude and that ain’t gonna change.” His voice was quiet, and though he’d opened his eyes, he kept them fixed on the coffee table. He drummed his fingers against the half-empty beer can in his hands anxiously; he didn’t really want to be having this discussion.

“I didn’t think you were being intolerant,” Tatara reassured him, and as he rested his hand comfortingly on Misaki’s shoulder, Misaki felt his heartbeat stumble in his chest. “You didn’t seem disgusted or anything like that. But I am a bit worried; what’s bothering you? Are you afraid of saying the wrong thing?”

“Y-yeah.” It was true, but only a half-truth, and Tatara obviously knew it.

“…And?”

Misaki shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I-It’s heavy, I don’t wanna be a downer.”

“You’ll probably feel better once you’ve gotten it out. I don’t mind.”

“I’ve never… talked about it before… I don’t wanna make things weird…” The words almost seemed to physically snag in Misaki’s throat.

“It won’t,” Tatara promised immediately.

Misaki screwed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “I-I sorta… had a sexuality crisis… and all the gender stuff brought it back up in my head.”

Tatara patted him on the shoulder comfortingly, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Over the past few months, I’d… I dunno, sorta figured maybe I was g-gay…” He let out a shaky breath- it was strange to hear that said aloud. “B-but it took a while to like… fully accept it, I guess. I thought you had to be like stereotypically gay, and I didn’t want to be like that. I didn’t want to have a lisp and watch crappy daytime TV and listen to Lady Gaga. So I fought really hard against the idea.”

Tatara smiled softly. “That’s okay. You don’t have to fit into society’s stereotypes to be gay; the only thing you have to do to be gay is to only be into other guys. I know it’s easy to internalise all the crap people say about queer folks, but liking other men doesn’t make you any less of a man.”

Misaki gave a weak smile. “Thanks…” Then, he sighed again, steadying himself to force out the next sentence. “I was getting pretty sure I really was… gay… especially after Mikoto-san started screwing the Blue King or whatever, like if he can kiss dudes and still be kickass then so can I…”

“That’s good. I’m glad you’re starting to accept yourself. There’s nothing wrong with being gay; you’re still you, no matter who you happen to fall in love with. Am I the first person you’ve told?”

Misaki nodded. “Mm. I’ve never even said it out loud.”

“That’s okay. There’s no pressure to ‘come out’ if you don’t want to, or even to label it if you don’t want to. It’s nobody’s business but yours, and perhaps any guys you’re interested in,” he added with a grin.

“T-thanks.”

“Is there anyone you’re interested in?” Tatara asked playfully, but then he paused, examining the expression on his friend’s face. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah, fine,” Misaki replied, but he spoke far too quickly.

“…Coming out wasn’t the only thing bothering you, was it?”

Misaki bit his lip. “I-I dunno if you wanna hear the other bit.”

“It’s okay, you can talk to me about anything.”

Misaki huffed a sigh, slumping back against the couch with a torn look on his face.

“I promise. No judgement.”

“Hnn… fine,” Misaki conceded, fixing his gaze on his shoelaces. “I-I thought I’d sort of come to terms with it, you know, the whole gay thing… and then you came out to me…” He paused, taking a deep breath. He didn’t dare look over at his friend. “…And all these stupid voices in my head I couldn’t get to shut up were doing some fucked up mental gymnastics to try and reason that maybe I wasn’t gay after all.”

Tatara tilted his head. “Why would that make you not gay?”

“Because… y-you’re hot, okay? It’s just an objective fact. Like, there isn’t a person alive who’s into dudes who wouldn’t be attracted to you. But these stupid voices were trying to persuade me that if you weren’t born a dude or whatever or if you have girl junk… n-not that I’m asking! Whatever’s in your pants is your business… but like… Ugh, I sound like such an asshole. I don’t know how to say it without coming off like a total douche. Like, you’re a dude, so whatever junk you have is dude junk, and I’ve never seen you as anything but a dude regardless of junk and I really need to stop talking about your junk I’m sorry…”

Tatara continued rubbing his shoulder. “Take your time.”

Misaki sighed, trying to slow down the pace of his words. “The dumb nagging voices at the back of my head were trying to twist you being trans into an excuse to say I wasn’t really gay, because I still think you’re hot even though you’re trans, and I’m pissed off at myself for trying to think that way.”

“You weren’t doing it on purpose. Like I said, it’s hard not to internalise people’s intolerance when you’re figuring yourself out. As long as it’s not really you talking, then it’s fine.”

Misaki gave a stiff nod. “T-thank you. S-sorry, I shouldn’t be making you comfort me for being like this… Y-you’ll always be a dude in my eyes and I’ll fight anyone who says you’re not.”

Tatara was quiet for a second, and Misaki finally lifted his gaze to look over at his friend, afraid he’d upset him. But to his surprise, a faint smile curled the corner of Tatara’s lips, and his cheeks were flushed.

“Totsuka-san?”

“People don’t usually question their entire sexuality just because one person they think is hot turns out not to have the junk they’re expecting them to. It usually takes a little more than that…”

Misaki opened his mouth to protest, but Tatara cut in before he had a chance.

“Yata-chan, do you have feelings for me?”

“W-what? Why would you think that?” Misaki’s heart squeezed in his chest in panic, and he could feel himself stumbling over his words.

Tatara gave him a soft smile. “I had suspicions for a while- you get this look in your eye when you look at me, but I didn’t really dare believe it…”

Misaki paused. “W-what?”

“I thought: ‘maybe it’s just wishful thinking,’ ‘maybe I’m just projecting’.”

Misaki blinked in shock, the surprise almost knocking the wind out of him- he’d forgotten to breathe for a second. He couldn’t quite allow himself to process what he thought Tatara was suggesting. The room felt sort of wobbly, as though he was dreaming.

“A-are you saying…?” Misaki didn’t quite have enough breath to finish the sentence.

But he didn’t need to. The next thing he knew, Tatara had cupped his jaw gently, and had leaned in to brush their lips together. Misaki froze on the spot, unable to do anything more than close his eyes.

Tatara pulled back, and after a moment, he chuckled. “Breathe, Yata-chan.”

Misaki nodded, finally managing to draw in a gasp of air. “Y-you…?” was all he could manage to say.

“…Like you?” Tatara finished for him, and Misaki managed another stiff nod of confirmation. “Yeah, I do. You’re handsome, and you’re really sweet beneath your hardcore exterior. After Fushimi left and we started spending more time together, I found myself really looking forward to seeing you, and getting butterflies and being self-conscious about how I looked because I wanted you to see the best side of me…” He blushed deeper as he spoke, and the sight of Tatara’s cheeks turning pink made Misaki’s chest feel funny.

He couldn’t quite summon words for a few second, and when he could, all he could think to say was: “A-am I awake?”

Tatara burst into a fit of giggles, rocking forward to bury his face in Misaki’s shoulder, almost bashfully. “You’re so cute…”

“S-shut up…”

Tatara looked up, a hopeful grin still playing across his lips. There was a playful twinkle in his eye, and Misaki didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so pretty in his life.

“So what do you say? Wanna go to dinner with me sometime?”

“I’m definitely gay,” Misaki blurted, staring at Tatara in disbelief. Now he’d finally come to that conclusion, he sort of couldn’t believe he’d ever doubted it- it seemed obvious now. He was _really god damn gay_ and he had a big fat gay crush on his closest friend, the contents of his underwear be damned.  

Tatara giggled once more. “Is that a yes~?”

“F-fuck yes!” Misaki didn’t seem able to spit the words out fast enough, and Tatara threw his arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly with a dazzling grin.

Misaki decided this was the best birthday present he’d ever gotten.  


End file.
